Abstract:
Aspen (Atmospheric Sounding Processing Environment) is used for analysis and
quality control (QC) of sounding data. The program runs on Windows machines. It
has the following capabilities:
Automatically apply quality control procedures to the sounding data
Present data in tabular and graphical forms
Automatically determine levels and code them in WMO message formats
Transmit the WMO messages
... to other systems
Save the raw and derived data products in various formats
Since Aspen can process data provided in the AVAPS Dropsonde, NCAR GLASS, NCAR
MCASS and NCAR CLASS formats, it is able to analyze both dropsonde and upsonde
soundings.
Aspen is designed to operate as automatically as possible, while allowing the
user to have some control over the QC methods. For instance, as soon as the
user selects a sounding file for processing, the data is brought into Aspen and
automatically analyzed. In most cases this first pass will be the only one
required. If the processing needs to be modified, the user can change the QC
parameters and reprocess the data as many times as necessary.
An extensive series of QC algorithms are applied to the data. These algorithms
typically have one or two parameters that may be adjusted by the user if the
default values are not suitable for a particular sounding. The user can save
the modified options, so that when a new sounding is opened, the initial
analysis will use the customized QC parameters.
Aspen can have up to twenty sounding files open at the same time. This makes it
convenient to compare soundings. Output results can be formatted as printed
text and graphics, and in ASCII and netCDF files. 
